[wellylug] I blew it - lost a convert

[Eugene Van Wyk]

Hi Brent

Accepted.  I can understand all that.  But maybe this should be said a
little louder then.  For Joe Soap that sees this distro and decides to
give it a bash, may be the only time Mandrake has a chance to get
another client, and if MDK10 was my first contact with Linux, I would
certainly have given up by now.  I know it has performed flawlessly for
some, but I have had issues on every platform I've tried.

To date my best consistent MDK experience has been with Mandrake8.
Second on the list has been the disk based install for Knoppix.  Besides
Red Hat, I have not played with any other distro's.

BTW, do you remember the command to do a disk install of Knoppix.  I
have another P1 machine that I would like to give the Knoppix treatment?

Eugene van Wyk
Test Development Engineer
4RF Communications Ltd
26 Glover St
Ngauranga
Wellington
New  Zealand
 

-----Original Message-----
From: wellylug-admin at lists.wellylug.org.nz
[mailto:wellylug-admin at lists.wellylug.org.nz] On Behalf Of Wood Brent
Sent: Wednesday, 1 September 2004 10:41 a.m.
To: wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz
Subject: RE: [wellylug] I blew it - lost a convert


--- Eugene Van Wyk <Eugene.VanWyk at 4rf.com> wrote:

> I agree with MDK10 hassles.  I am still struggling on since I've had
> Mandrake8, 9 and now 10 Each new program install is a major fight, and
I
> still can't get OOo1.1.2 to run from the menu.  (MDK8 or 10)  I've
also
> had regular issues with X just going sad, and the machine sitting
there
> with a black screen. 

I think there needs to be some clarification about Linux (esp Mandrake)
and
hardware support, graphics in particular. (This is just how I see it- in
a very
general sense. Flames to /dev/null, criticisms are fine :-) 



The freely downloadable version of Mandrake has NO proprietary software.
So can
be freely copied, given away without restriction. So it does not have
the ATi
or Nvidia drivers, because their licensing is not considered free &
open.

Same for some other hardware, including some modem & LAN drivers.

If you purchase the Professional version of Mandrake, as a commercial
product
the contents do NOT all have to be free & open. I can't speak for the
ATi cards
from personal experience, but I know that I have NEVER had any problems
with
ANY  hardware, from graphics, LAN, modems, sound, TV cards, etc when
using the
commercial version of Mandrake. eg: it correctly identified an on board
MX440
graphics, BT TV card, etc. Correctly installed the proprietary 3D Nvidia
drivers, video4linux, etc, set up my Windows partition in LILO to boot
properly.

This is pretty typical IN MY EXPERIENCE!!! (Yours may well vary)

So, the Mandrake "Community Edition" does not have all the bells &
whistles. As
long as some hardware requires proprietary drivers, it is unlikely yhat
any
free release of Linux will ever avoid such problems. The Community
Edition is
so called because it is NOT intended as the total solution for everyone,
but is
more for the Linux & Mandrake community to play with. I believe it does
a
pretty good job overall.

Please don't expect any free & Open Source software to have full support
for
all hardware when the hardware developers & manufacturers do not release
open
source drivers. 

If this is a problem, then get the commercial version & I'm pretty sure
most if
not all such problems will be avoided. 

FYI, the 10 CD Mandrake 10 distro that Damon put together & may still be
around
has many packages not included on the normal Mandrake 10 version. You
may find
that this solves some problems as well.



I would also note that in my experience, "name brand" systems, like
Dell, IBM,
Compaq, Packard Smell/NEC, .... do have a habit of believing they know
better
than everyone else & sometimes do things in a slightly different way. So
generic memory won't work, etc.... They are also more prone to having
generic
software not work as seamlessly as well. A good locally assembled system
made
of standard components is (IMHO) less likely to have niggles with Linux
than
systems from the big companies...

(But I guess, as always, your experiences may differ :-) 



A final comment, at the last reckoning, before Xorg, the Xfree86 project
was
larger than the Linux kernel project. Problems with X tend to be
considered as
problems with Linux, but this is not actually the case. They are two
separate
packages which are generally packaged together by distro producers. If
you get
a text prompt, your Linux is probably fine. Not that that is much
consolation
:-)


Cheers,

   Brent


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